So let's start by explaining why I hate Oprah Winfrey, and it's not that I want to blame her for this it's just that I'm fairly certain that by having her tag on as a producer, The Great Debaters went in the direction that it did which is “how much can we shove general blacktivisim down your throat before you remember that you're watching a movie about a debate team and THEIR success.”
Resolved: Every time Oprah gets her grubby little fingers in a movie about black triumph, she degrades the message it's trying to send by force feeding you with it so many damn times that it loses all meaning by the end of it instead of just letting the story do its job. Look at Beloved, The Color Purple (still a great movie), and this one, which had, because of the theme of it, so many openings to play the whole “black power during a time of oppression” card, did so EVERY TIME, but never challenged them at all...which is odd for a movie about DEBATING! By the end of it, I didn't feel like there were any moments of victory, I was just kind waving the white flag saying “I get it. I get it. It sucked to be black back then.”
The Great Debaters focuses around an all-black debate team in 1935 Texas in a town that is struggling to decide if it's racist or not. At the heart of this debate team is Melvin Tolsin (Denzel Washington) who is a hard-ass not because he truly believes in any of the shit he shovels, but because he is one of the few people who likes the sound of his own voice more than I do. Accompanying him are the 4 members of his debate team, Larry, Curly, Moe, and Shemp. The movie wants you to think they're smart because of the words they say...because they bank on you forgetting that Melvin is writing all of their speeches. Instead, these four bicker and whine like the children they are about relationships and...more relationships because Debaters really wants to avoid intelligent conversation and show you that “It sucked to be black that then.”
Even the debates shown are few, with the team speaking the affirmative to “It sucked to be black back then,” having a mostly black audience applaud to it, then fast forwarding through the counter-arguments because nobody wanted to research on the points that could have defended the position of oppression. Sure, nowadays there really aren't any GOOD reasons...but this is 1935 in the South. It's not an intelligent movie if you simply present arguments and follow up with “there's nothing that can beat that...so let's not try! NEXT SCENE,” you look like an egomaniac (Oprah...) that can stand up for what you believe in as long as nobody's challenging you. Not smart.
Going from school to school winning debate after debate with about the speed that it takes you to read this sentence, the team triumphs with powerful speech and eventually beats a bunch of white kids without learning anything. Sorry for the spoiler, but that was clearly not the point of the movie. “It sucked to be black back then.” That was the point. With some disturbing scenery, Debaters did a good job of creating tense situations, but never really did anything with them but show you that they happened. Not really any uproar or lingering fear when you see a black guy hung and set on fire...just drive in the other direction. Perhaps this is how it was back then, but I'd like to think SOMETHING motivated people to stand up for their race if this didn't.
Taking easy out after easy out, The Great Debaters was disappointing. I was hoping for a lot more intelligence, a lot more raw power through words, and I got...nothing. No quotes to reflect on, no really gripping drama, no feelings and emotion tugging on my soul that made me truly feel that “It sucked to be black back then.” It just did everything half-assed. Including utilize Forest Whitaker...remember, he was in the movie too.
I'm going to give this a 7 dustbusters out of ten because it was disappointing...but not actually bad. Usually to get into that D range there has to be something that slaps me in the face with its ignorance and stupidity, and I appreciate that Debaters didn't do that. But this movie should have been about the great debaters. The team. Let their story tell us that “It sucked to be black back then.”
Because it sucked to be black back then. Since the beginning of this review, how much has that statement changed for you? Yeah. Stupid Oprah.
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